Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Moved up from original June 23rd Street Date. Good for solitaire play too.

BAN23910

Uncharted Board Game

$ 29.99 SRP

Dive into a world where mysteries are waiting to be solved, the past
waiting to be uncovered, and the competition pursuing you at every turn. Should
you push farther into the ruins to find the treasure, or should you deal with
the pursuers at your back? Will you find the key to eternal life, endless
riches, or will the pages of history close on you? The mysteries of the past
unlock in the Uncharted Board Game, where you and up to 3 other friends compete
to find treasure, defeat the competition, and ultimately succeed where others
before you have failed. Will you fall victim to a trap set hundreds of years
ago, or hold the power to shape the world itself? The choice is yours, but one
misstep could spell the end of your adventuring career… permanently.
Remember, among thieves and adventurers alike, there are no rules. Game
contents: •Game manual and 190 cards •Game board •Tokens

Monday, April 23, 2012

Lupin The Third brings
the characters of the decades-old manga series Lupin III, created by Kazuhiko Kato, to the
game board, with players taking the role of one of five characters from the
series, each represented by a colorful miniature:•
The unpredictable gentleman thief Lupin
• His inseparable friend with the unerring aim, Jigen
• The taciturn master swordsman Goemon Ishikawa XIII
• The charming and mischievous Fujiko Mine, Lupin's love interest
• The stubborn and indefatigable Inspector ZenigataIn Lupin The Third, one of the
players will control Inspector Zenigata and be visible on the game board along
with his team of police agents, while the other players will work together to
try together to steal the treasure and escape; these players are visible only
when within view of Zenigata and the police, but both sides can use tricks to
misdirect the other. What's more, as in the comic, Fujiko Mine can betray the
group to try to escape with the treasure on her own!

Spoke to the guys from The Lotus Guardian about their robbery and got an update. Officially it is still unsolved and the police have had no luck in identifying the criminals. Unofficially, the owners believe they know who was responsible but have no proof to back up their belief. they did report those suspects to the police but the police found nothing when they questioned them and searched the apartment.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

I guess it was too much to hope for that some dink would
refrain from opening WOTC’s Helvault ahead of time, then taking photographs of
the contents and posting them online.Even
worse, reportedly someone else unsealed the Helvault and posted the contents
for sale on eBay.A quick search on eBay
didn’t turn up any currently running auctions for one, so hopefully it got
pulled fast.Luckily, the first set of
photos got pulled down as well but some other twits have bragged about copying
and reposting them. If a store owner cracked open the Helvault , I certainly
hope WOTC finds out whom and pulls their store status permanently. WOTC had set
up a very cool promotion, especially by not telling anyone, except for those
within the super secret circle at WOTC, what it contained.This essentially made the Helvault a giant
booster pack with Magic players free to project onto it what it concealed.There was even an amusing Twitter feed
#intheHelvault, with people tweeting what they thought it held.Me, I hoped for a set of revised Dual Lands
and a new Spindown counter.

Point is,
whatever the Helvault held would be nowise as cool as what people thought it held.
It couldn’t be, that is the strength and the curse of our imagination.Paraphrasing Mr. Spock from the Star Trek
episode Amok Time, “You will find the having is not as pleasurable as the
wanting.” Cracking it open and posting the contents likely made the person who
did it feel like they were important for a period of time and drawn some
attention to their website or Tumblr.Meanwhile, WOTC now has an event they put a lot of time and effort (and
money) into that won’t have nearly the impact that it would, store owners who
won’t have a big a turnout for the opening of the Helvault as they expected
prior to the breach (I have already seen postings from players who are skipping
the pre-release as a result of finding out the contents of the Helvault) and
players who had a potentially dang cool event ruined.Here’s hoping most of them haven’t see the
posting of the Helvault contents but given the pervasiveness of the internet,
it’s not likely, unless they actively avoid the information.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

I am perched behind the registration table at Egypt Wars 3,
our local gaming convention with the evening of the second day winding
down.I hear the chatter of the Yu Gi Oh
players in the room behind me, the phrase “I can’t stop 6000” suddenly sounds
loud and clear, followed by a laugh.From other parts of the building the murmur of voices sounds, punctuated
by the sporadic giggles of children and the guffaw of other players as
something happens, either to them or another gamer.There’s a mom standing at the far end of the
registration hall, waiting on her son to drag himself away from casual Magic
play.Aside from that, it’s quiet for
the first time today, giving me a chance to muse upon this con and small
regional gaming conventions in general.

1.OP puts “butts
in seats”.At the university I where I
teach, a factor considered when deciding whether to offer a class is “Does it
put butts in seats?”Less bluntly, does
the offering attract enough people to justify making it available to the group
to which we target it.A course needs to
attract a certain number of students in order to justify offering it.If not enough students sign up, the university
cannot justify devoting space and faculty time to it.

Likewise, Organized Play appears the
driving force behind filling RPG tables at smaller cons.At Egypt Wars, Pazio’s Pathfinder Society has
taken the place of WOTC’s RPGA events. While every table of Pathfinder Society
filled to capacity, with a waiting list, non-OP RPG events, for the most part
languished. Similarly at another small regional con, Cogcon in Rolla MO (now
seemingly defunct), Heroes of Rokugon OP filled tables, while tables of non-OP
RPGs sat empty.Based on our experience
at this, and the past couple of cons held here, we will work to ensure that
Egypt Wars offered numerous tables of Pathfinder Society.

2.Opinion
leaders matter.Conversely from what I
just said in #1, there were two table of non-OP at Egypt Wars that consistently
filled, both run by long-time GMs with a reputation for running a quality game
within the gaming community.One has run
RPGs since the dawn of D&D, the other not so long but well thought of by
those in the area that love Whit Wolf’s product lines.Both are known to love their games, to love
running them and to put extensive time and care into prepping for any games
they run.People within their gaming
community know this and flock to their tables when they signup to run a game, while other GMs, without
the same reputation, sit idle.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The third annual Egypt Wars kicks off tomorrow at noon with events starting at 2 and 7 p.m. Local favorite Fat Patties will cater. There will be Pathfinder Society events every slot, Pokemon every slot, Warhammer 40000 Friday night and all day Saturday as well as the return of an old favorite, Clay-o-rama. Can't make the con? Follow it on Twitter at #egyptwars2012.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

For those of you who just might have missed it, Konami has
announced the Sneak Peek for the next Yu Gi Oh! set, Galactic Overlord, takes
place the weekend of April 28th. In case you really missed the news,
something else pre-releases that same weekend, namely WOTC’s latest Magic expansion
Avacyn Restored, the third set in the Innistrad block.WOTC really pushed interest in this release
with their announcement of the Helvault promotion, which sparked a round of
guesses on Twitter as to what’s #IntheHelvault.Based on customer interest so far, I expect this to be our best attended
pre-release in some time, which begs the question, why put the Galactic
Overlord Sneak Peek up against it, making life more difficult for the retailer?

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Here are upcoming releases for Last Night on Earth and Flying Frog' s other games:

SKU

TITLE

PRICE

FFP
0107

Last Night on
Earth Blood in the Forest
Exp

$39.95

As the Zombie
plague spreads, the forests will run red! The Blood in the Forest
Expansion for Last Night On Earth features a full set of Forest Boards and
a double-sided Forest Center Board (with the Airfield), a set of seven
vicious, new Feral Zombies, two new Heroes, a host of new Hero and Zombie
cards, counters, Scenarios, and Game
Mechanics.

FFP
0108

Last Night on
Earth
Timber Peak
Exp

$49.95

Escaping from
the Zombie-overrun town of Woodinvale, a handful of survivors make
their way up into the mountains. But as they reach the small logging and
mining town of Timber Peak, they will discover that a
new nightmare has just begun! This expansion to Last Night On Earth
introduces the brand-new town of Timber Peak with a full set of game
boards, six new Heroes, four Generator objective pieces, a set of 14
Zombies, a host of new Scenarios, an Experience System for both Heroes and
the Zombie horde, and over 130 new game
cards.

FFP
0205

A Touch of Evil
The Coast Exp

$39.95

The Heroes must
fend off deadly curses and contend with all manner of creatures from the
dark depths to keep evil at bay, forcing it back into the icy waters that
break along the rocky shores of The Coast. This expansion for A Touch of
Evil is jam-packed with new material, including four new Heroes, four
fearsome new Villains to hunt like The Ghost Ship, Siren, or the dreaded
Dreamweaver, a game board of the fog-shrouded coastline to add to the main
Shadowbrook board, three new Town Elders, and a host of new mysteries to
be solved. The Coast also features tons of new game cards including decks
for three new Locations to explore (The SmugglerÕs Cove, Lighthouse, and
the haunted Shipwreck), as well as a new town - the long-cursed village of
Tidewater.

FFP
0206

A Touch of Evil
Hero Pack 2

$24.95

Hero Pack 2
introduces four new Heroes to A Touch of Evil (Sara, the Bright Witch;
Jack Fellows, Privateer; Frederic Leon, the Foreign Diplomat from distant
France; and Abigail Sturn, Student of the Occult), each with a
highly-detailed plastic miniature as well as a corresponding Hero
Character Sheet. Hero Pack 2 also features several new game cards and a
new Villain to hunt.

FFP
0403

Conquest of
Planet Earth Apocalypse

$39.95

The Apocalypse
Expansion for Conquest of Planet Earth sees the battle for Earth continue,
escalating in scale as more Alien species are dispatched to the planet to
take on the growing resistance of the stubborn Human defenders. This
expansion introduces several new Alien races to play such as the fearsome
Selenian Sirens or the Martian Confederacy, a new deck of Coastal
Resistance for the Humans, and the awesome power of the dreaded Apocalypse
Cube, emissary of Armageddon. Apocalypse also adds new cards to all of
the original decks and includes more saucers and boards to expand
the player count up to 5-6
players.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Queen
Games got more press this week then they have so far this year, with their
announcement of agreement for exclusive
distribution with ACD Distribution.In
the last few months, that makes two for ACD (Queen Games and Playroom), one for
Alliance (Z-Man Games) and a split between the two (Looney Labs).I find it interesting that all of these
exclusives are happening in the boardgame industry.No exclusives signed with RPG companies, none
with miniatures companies, none with book publishers and certainly none with
any TCG companies.